Longform Writing

One of the most frustrating tradeoffs during these years that I’ve been working on Sifter has been the degree to which I’ve cut some corners with user experience. It wasn’t a decision that I took lightly, but it was a very deliberate decision. Now that…

There was a probably an easier way. Fortunately, it feels like we’re over the hump. Regardless, being a solo founder probably isn’t for everyone. I imagine it’s something like being a single parent. It’s not impossible, but it’s no cake walk. There’s…

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in our garage making things by hand for my office. Admittedly, much of the stuff is purchased, and all I’m really doing is a little sawing, sanding, painting, finishing, and nailing. Assuming it’s not just the…

I’m in love with this article about meetups to repair broken goods. Working on Sifter and pouring myself into it has bred a fascination with tools, manual labor, and vintage goods. Things used to be built for longevity. Design was simpler and more…

We’re rolling out a new identity for Sifter, and while I couldn’t be happier with it, part of me worries about how superficial it may seem from the outside. Reading countless corporate-speak press releases over the years about new logos “synergizing and…

I’m self-employed. One might think that means that I’m my own boss, but it doesn’t really work like that. I don’t have a boss. I have dozens; only I call them customers. Now, these great folks aren’t technically my boss, but they influence our…

Since day one, I’ve always felt like I was behind. I was moving too slow. I could never catch up. Our customers wanted, even needed, improvements. I rushed and hurried and worried. I bounced around from this enhancement to that. I got away from…

Last night around 2:30, I woke up to the piercing sound of house alarm going off. I sprinted to Lauren and Bella, who were sleeping in the other room in an attempt to help Bella sleep better. Once I was sure they were alright and hadn’t triggered the…

In basketball, and probably many other sports, you always want to finish strong. That is, you don’t want to waste all of your energy getting to the hoop and then not make your layup. Often, it’s so easy to caught up in the first part, it’s easy to lose…

The full stack for a web application can be rather overwhelming, but it’s not quite as bad as you might think. If you look at this list knowing only a small portion of the items, it can be incredibly intimidating. Really, though, it’s an incremental…

It used to be a job, a responsibility, and a livelihood. The moment we launched, shit got serious. I stopped dreaming and started responding. To customer feedback. Feature requests. Complaints. Cancellations. It stopped being a dream come true and…

A few weeks ago, we released a significant update to Sifter. (Rails 3, Ruby 1.9, and a bevy of associated gems and other components in case you’re curious about such things.) Since then, there have only been a few fleeting moments of peace and quiet. My…

We spent the last 6 months doing hard work that isn’t fun or directly visible to customers. It just had to be done. It sucked. Building this foundation has been the hardest, most involved work with which I’ve ever been involved, and nothing has ever…

Just a random thought. As a solo founder, my time is our scarcest commodity. Making sure that I have free time and minimal interruptions has become one of my highest priorities, and it’s paying off. Some of the best investments I’ve made in Sifter are…

Lately, I’ve been reading biographies and stories by athletes, business people, and politicians. The one attribute common to all of them is tenacity on a level that most of us can’t even imagine. The problem is that on the surface, we only see the…

After the recent presentation, I was surprised how many questions I heard about our choice of business model or application. There also seems to be no shortage of people debating between native mobile and web applications. For me, there are a variety of…

My biggest frustration with our little boot-strapped startup is that the bootstrapping part causes us to always grounded in reality. We’re incredibly careful to remain profitable as we grow the business. That’s a good thing for the long-term, but it can…

Keith Jacobs and I had known each other and worked together fairly closely for about 5 years when he wrote a check for $16,000 so I could quit my job and start Sifter. What’s more interesting is that after writing the check, he didn’t look at the…

2.3% That’s the percentage of time that people interact with Sifter via Beanstalk or email integration. Certainly there are dozens of factors at play here, but I can guarantee you that number is completely disproportionate to the amount of time and…

With the proliferation of subscription-based hosted businesses, my first thought with each new one is to wonder if they’ll be around in a year. Are they funded? Are they profitable? How long have they been around? When trusting a company with your data…